Relief for Sky Garden as new investor saves Kenya-based startup from closure

Kenya-based e-commerce company Sky.Garden will not shut down following last month’s insolvency, after all, the startup’s CEO and co-founder, Martin Majlund, has announced.

This is after the Danish B2C venture got an unnamed acquirer. Majlund in a social media post on Sunday said the company continues with a new owner and management.

“Last month management saw no other options than to file for insolvency in the Danish Holding Company Sky.Garden ApS. Today, I’m happy to announce that we’ve found an acquirer for the IP and the Kenyan company. Sky.Garden will live on with new owners and new management,” Majlund wrote on LinkedIn.

The fate of Sky.Garden and its reported 46-member staff became unpredictable in early September after the startup failed to close a round of financing.

TechCrunch reported that Majlund sent termination notices to employees after a town hall meeting, where he disclosed the company was running out of money and would close on October 16.

Even so, the CEO revealed that the Amazon-style marketplace for third-party merchants was still in talks with investors and potential buyers to save it from closure.

Founded in 2017 by Majlund and Christian Grubak, Sky.Garden is SaaS e-commerce platform that helps retail stores digitize offline and online sales. It earns an 8 per cent commission for every sale made through its platform.

In 2021, the company closed a Ksh.487 million ($4 million) Series-A round to accelerate its growth in Kenya, bringing total funding secured since inception to Ksh.634 million ($5.2 million).

On Sunday, Majlund noted that the market had been “volatile” in 2022.

“Great tech, great people, great (although very volatile) market didn’t make up for bad timing, macroeconomic contractions and a lot of “slow no’s”. 2022 has been a shitty year running a B2C tech company in East Africa but I’m pleased that we managed to secure the vision of Sky.Garden to live on whilst retaining jobs,” he said.

As for his next move, Majlund said: “I've got something cooking. Something that solves a real problem. This, however, requires a new post. I'll share more shortly.”